Wrangell’s bird and bear festivals will receive almost $50,000 in grant funding to promote the cultural and tourist events. Secure Rural School funds will go to both of Wrangell’s wildlife celebrations: Stikine River Birding Festival and Alaska Bearfest.

Male Rufous Hummingbird
Photo by Matt Durfey
Contest Winner 04/20/14 – 04/26/14

Corree Delabrue organizes Bird Fest and chairs the city’s Convention and Visitor Bureau Board.  She said the city applied for these funds a few years ago and just recently got the OK.

“There was some confusion and questions about whether the festivals actually qualify for these funds,” Delabrue said. “A few years later it was actually all sorted out. The festivals do qualify for these funds. And so now each festival, both the bird festival and bear festival, have about $24,000 to be used over a multi-year period.”

Secure Rural School grants come through the U.S. Forest Service.

Delabrue said the extra funds will bring in more speakers.

“With some funds you can ask some people that are a little further away or have like a speaking fee, a few years back we also had artists come to town and work in the schools. And we discontinued that when we didn’t have funding, or extra funding. With more funding there’s more options available.”

The visitor board is also interested in promoting shoulder season tourism. Delabrue hopes that Bird Fest can promote the activity throughout the year, not just for the spring event. Millions of birds migrate throughout the Stikine Delta, including one of the world’s largest concentrations of bald eagles, according to the Audubon Society.

“When you have something that’s migratory um picking one weekend can be kind of difficult. It’s kind of a moving target,” Delabrue said. “Some years there’s lots of birds. Some years they’re earlier or later. So that’s why we’re just promoting spring birding in general.”

The borough will host Bird Fest in April and Bear Fest in July of next year.

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An extension of the Secure Rural Schools Program is part of a recently passed transportation bill. The program has been a mainstay for districts in or near National Forests in and outside of Alaska.

Senator Lisa Murkowski says the extension is only good for one year. She had hoped for more.

Senator Lisa Murkowski.

“The bad news is that there’s no glide path. What we were working on was a proposal that would allow for a four- to five-year phase-down, just working it down to a point that was manageable because right now there is no certainty after this year,” Murkowski says.

Alaska got more than $15 million for schools, roads and some other projects from the program earlier this year. Murkowski says the next allocation will be 5 percent less.

She says chances for a longer extension could improve next year. That’s because the Energy and Natural Resources Committee comes up with the Senate’s funding plan for the program.

Murkowski will be the panel’s ranking Republican member. And Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who also supports the program, will be the ranking Democratic member.

“So either he or I will be the chairman of the Energy Committee, depending on what happens with the majorities. We’ve talked about this, about how we can work for a little more certainty to this program. I can’t give you any real guidelines right now in terms of how we may take it. But I think we’ve got a better shot next year for a little longer approach to the program,” Murkowski says.

Without the extension, the program will revert to a formula that provides far less funding.

The same bill also authorized another year of the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program. That also provides federal funding to rural communities. Without another extension, it will also revert to a less lucrative formula.

That program funds firefighting, police operations, and school and road construction.

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